


Killed

by JCapasso



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24826105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: Elena is killed by Connor in 4x05 but is offered an out. She can take Katherine's place in her body back in 1864 for the rest of her existence.
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57





	1. Prologue

Elena was running through the tunnels, trying to get to Jeremy. She knew that Damon and Stefan were already ahead of her and she might not even make it before it was all over, but she couldn’t not try. She couldn’t risk all of them while she sat on her hands. When she ran across the hunter that had taken them hostage, she feared the worst and her adrenaline had her grabbing him and feeding on him. She managed to stop herself after a moment though and took a step back. “Stay the hell away from my brother,” she growled, blood dripping from her chin, as she pushed him to his knees. 

He sneered up at her and said, “Look at you. So worried about your brother. You’re the biggest monster he’ll ever meet.” He had used the distraction to work his stake out of his pocket and put it in her heart before she even noticed. 

Elena felt a pain that she never could have imagined, falling to her knees as she could feel her body start to wither. She just managed to catch sight of Damon and Stefan running around the corner, screaming for her before the pain disappeared and she found herself watching the scene from outside her body. Damon immediately snapped the hunter’s neck before joining Stefan on his knees beside her body, tears streaming down both their cheeks. 

She watched as Damon pulled the stake from her heart, brushing her hair back from her face. She screamed, “No!” when she saw Damon put the stake to his own chest. 

“What are you doing?” Stefan asked, grabbing Damon’s wrist and pulling it back. 

“I’m not living in a world without her, Stefan. I refuse,” Damon said heartbrokenly. 

“No, Damon you can’t,” Stefan said desperately as Elena silently begged Damon to listen to his brother. 

Damon shoved Stefan back so hard he slid across the ground. “No!” she snapped. “This is MY choice Stefan and you’re not gonna take it away from me again. You’re not stronger than me this time,” Damon said, jamming the stake into his heart before Stefan could recover. 

Elena cried out and ran forward at the same time that Stefan blurred the distance between them, too late to stop him. Elena was sobbing as she watched Damon die, and then she looked around. “Damon?” she called when he didn’t appear. If she came here then so would he right? 

“He can’t hear you,” someone appeared before her as Stefan cried over both their bodies. “You’re on the other side. Only witches can interact with anyone else and I’m only here for a single reason.” 

“You’re Emily Bennett aren’t you?” Elena cried. “Please…can’t you do anything? At least give me a chance to say goodbye?” 

“There is something I can do, but not here and now,” Emily told her. “You’re being given a choice. A once in a lifetime chance.”

“What kind of choice?” Elena asked, feeling herself being pulled away and stumbling backwards, looking to see Stefan carrying her body. 

Emily walked after her. “Your spirit is temporarily tied to your body,” Emily explained seeing her confusion. “Only until the choice is made, mind you. If you choose to stay here, you will be free to wander.” 

“What’s my other option? Other than staying here alone for eternity?” Elena asked. Pretty much anything was better than that. 

“You can take over the life and consciousness of your last known doppelganger, but I can only send you back to a time when I was with her.” 

“Wait, you mean Katherine? How? Why?”

“Yes. You would become Katherine and her soul would disappear. The hows are complicated, but as for why…Katherine did a lot of damage in her lifetime. She enslaved many witches and killed many more. We wish to avoid as much of that as possible.”

“But…why me? And isn’t messing with the timeline a bad thing?” Elena was completely gob-smacked, barely even paying attention to Stefan burying her body along with Damon and Connor.

“The only way to have enough power to do the spell is by consuming the spirit of a doppelganger and as her doppelganger only you would be compatible with her existence,” Emily explained. 

“Wait…just to confirm…it’s her spirit that would be consumed, not mine?” 

Emily nodded. “Yes. Your spirit would remain intact. As far as the timeline…it is inconsequential. Once this one is ended a new one is created. The natural order is malleable in that way. There will be rules, however.”

“What kind of rules?” Elena asked even as her mind turned over the idea. She would be going back in time. She would still be a vampire. But Damon would still be alive. Stefan wouldn’t be grieving both her and his brother. Katherine was the one that brought Klaus here which meant that Jenna and John would still be alive. She wouldn’t have manipulated Isobel. So much bad just in the last couple years could be prevented. 

“First, you can tell no one save my past self that are not Katherine, and you can only tell my past self because she will know due to the slave bond and your aura. You will have to order her to never tell a soul though.”

“You want me to order her using a slave bond?” Elena asked distastefully. 

“In this case, yes. It is necessary. It will prevent her from sharing the information even under torture. And no one else can find out. The consequences would be dire for us all,” Emily said seriously. This was extremely important. 

“Okay…but…there are people that Katherine knows…they might figure out something is different…”

“Which brings us to the second rule. The vampires must be rounded up and put to death in Mystic Falls just as they were the first time, but you cannot be with them this time either. Without Katherine’s order, I will not seal them away and they will die. There will be no one else that could notice any discrepancies. You will be placed at the nearest full moon to the event so you will only need to pretend for a short while,” Emily told her. 

“Okay,” Elena said with a deep breath. “Anything else?” 

“You will never enslave another witch or kill one for any reason other than self-defense. Other than that, you may do as you wish. I suspect that you will kill far fewer people than Katherine did anyway,” Emily said. 

“Do I have to decide right now?” Elena asked. 

“We cannot hold the door open much longer,” Emily told her. 

Elena took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll do it,” she agreed nervously. 

“Then step through,” Emily said pointing out an archway behind her that Elena was certain wasn’t there a moment ago. Elena took another deep breath to steady herself before stepping through.


	2. Chapter 2

Elena swayed a bit, grabbing the sides of the table she was sitting in front of as she tried to get her bearings. It took her a moment to notice Emily standing behind her with a hairbrush in her hand just as the witch in question took a few steps back gaping at her. “Wh-who are you? How did you…”

“It’s okay, Emily,” Elena assured her, getting up to face her. “The spirits sent me here to take over Katherine’s life. She did a lot of bad things, including making you a slave, and they wanted me to fix some of that.” 

Emily relaxed quite a bit at that. Whoever she was, she could not be worse than Katherine, and if the spirits truly had sent her, then she had to be good. “Alright,” Emily agreed, motioning her to sit back down. 

“What’s the date?” Elena asked curiously, sitting back down and taking the hairbrush from Emily and brushing her own hair. 

“September fourteenth,” Emily told her. “You have strange speech patterns. Where do you come from?” 

“Oh. Right. I guess I need to work on that,” Elena winced and gave it a shot. “I have come from a time far in the future. And I am sorry, but I have to give you an order to never tell a soul that I am not Katherine.” 

“I understand,” Emily said with a nod. 

“That is the only order I will ever give you though except in case of emergencies,” Elena promised. 

Emily smiled brightly as Elena finished brushing her hair and set the brush down on the table. “Thank you, Miss Katherine.” 

It was definitely going to take some getting used to for Elena to be called that, which was probably why Emily did it. “Will you help me? I do not know who many people are and fear I will make many mistakes.”

“I would be happy to help you, Miss Katherine,” Emily promised. Before anything else could be said there was a knock at the door and Emily immediately moved to open it before turning back. “Would you like to receive Mr. Damon Salvatore?” she asked, only adding the last name to tell her what it was. 

“Yes, I would. Thank you,” Elena said nervously and Emily opened the door to let him in. 

“Miss Katherine,” Damon said with a bright smile as he stepped towards her and reached a hand to her cheek, pulling her in for a sweet kiss.

Elena resisted the urge to pull away, knowing Katherine wouldn’t, but that didn’t mean that she had to continue this either. “I’m quite tired tonight, Damon,” she told him. She needed time to consider things and figure out what to do. 

“Would you be tired if it were my brother at your door?” Damon asked tightly before shaking his head. “Apologies, Miss Katherine. I know you do not wish to discuss such things. Perhaps I could simply lie down with you for a while?” 

Elena could see the hope in his eyes and the hurt when he mentioned Stefan and wondered how Katherine could ever have lived with herself doing that to them, but she couldn’t bear to turn him away after that. “If you wish,” she agreed, heading to the bed and Damon immediately laid down next to her and pulled her into his arms. 

Elena found herself immediately relaxing in his embrace. She had always been far more comfortable than she would ever admit in his arms though, so it wasn’t surprising. She laid her head on his chest and was surprised for a moment at hearing his heartbeat before she remembered that he was human now. “This is nice,” Damon whispered. “I do wish that we could do more of this.” 

Elena smiled and could easily agree to that. “If that’s what you wish, then we can do so,” she told him. She doubted Katherine had ever been much for cuddling with either of them. When he seemed content to just lie with her and not make conversation, she turned her mind towards figuring out what to do next. She hated the idea of jerking both brothers around, but how much could she really get away with changing between now and the vampire round-up in two weeks? She knew that if she threw one of them over they might feel scorned and blab her secret and blow it all, so didn’t really have much choice. The least she could do is make them both feel loved in the process though rather than treating them like toys the way Katherine had before to hear them talk. She needed at least tonight to wrap her mind around the idea of sleeping with them both though. 

Her mind wandered to her death next and she barely kept herself from wincing at the memory of the stake piercing her heart. Damon must have picked up on the momentary discomfort though because he kissed her head and ran a hand soothingly through her hair. That brought to mind Damon’s reaction to her death. She knew that he loved her. He’d made that more than clear in the past, but killing himself so that he didn’t have to live without her really threw her for a loop. She knew that he had been planning to let himself die when he lost Katherine, but there was a big difference between letting yourself die to avoid being a monster and driving a stake through your own heart. 

Damon had told her that he loved her more than he’d ever loved Katherine. That she was everything Katherine had pretended to be and not very well. That meant that he would likely come to love her just as much now when she really was that way. She hated that she would have to hurt him again. To hurt them both. Stefan had been devastated by her death too, but he had gotten over Katherine pretty quickly apparently. Maybe she should continue being more distant with him then. No need to draw him in more just to hurt him more. Damon would be devastated either way so she could at least give him what happiness she could. 

That would be like choosing Damon over Stefan though, and that thought made her more than a little uncomfortable. She had already made her choice. She chose Stefan and she should have to live with that. But then, that timeline was gone now except for in her mind if she’d understood Emily correctly. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to change her choice. She just didn’t know if she wanted to. If she was honest with herself, she did love Damon. She had just loved Stefan more. Or so she thought at the time. Since she’d turned, Stefan had been more distant and even lying to her and hiding things from her. She had been wondering lately if she made the right choice. She pushed those thoughts from her mind. It didn’t matter anyway. She only got to have two weeks with them before she had to take off. She would just have to make the most of the time they had.

She heard a quiet whisper that pulled her from her thoughts. “He cannot sleep here, Miss Katherine,” Emily said quietly, knowing that Damon wouldn’t hear her, but the vampire ears would. Elena looked over and gave her a grateful nod, realizing that Damon was starting to doze off. Her movement seemed to wake him fully, and Elena smiled as she propped herself on her elbow. “You should return to your room before we are found like this.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Damon. This truly was nice.” 

He smiled brightly and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “It was that. Until tomorrow, Miss Katherine,” he said as he got up and headed out.

It wasn’t long after he left that there was another knock on the door, and Elena assumed that would be Stefan. Sure enough, Emily announced him the same way she had Damon and Elena sat up on the bed as she let him in. “I’m quite tired tonight, Stefan,” she said with an apologetic smile, expecting another cuddle session. 

“Very well. Good night then Katherine,” Stefan said with a nod before leaving. 

Elena blinked at the door for a moment in surprise before laying back down. Maybe Stefan was just trying to respect her wishes and letting her sleep. That must be it. And the lack of the Miss in front of her name was probably just because he was more familiar with her. She remembered that Stefan had known her longer than Damon since he hadn’t met her until he came home on leave. Mystery solved she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but the thoughts just kept bombarding her until she gave in and asked Emily to tell her about her life and the people in it. 

Two hours later she had a decent overview and finally was able to fall asleep, at least slightly confident that she wouldn’t make any huge mistakes. Apparently her main contact among the vampires was the apothecary Pearl and her daughter Anna, who Elena knew. Otherwise, besides Stefan and Damon, the only person she regularly interacted with was their father Giuseppe who she always called Mr. Salvatore. That definitely made things easier.


	3. Chapter 3

Emily woke her early the next morning, telling her that she couldn’t miss breakfast. Elena was more than a little hungry for blood, but she didn’t have any idea where to get any in this time period other than straight from the necks of people which she didn’t want to do. Especially since, as far as she remembered from their stories, a lot of the people in this town were on vervain or would be soon. She knew that Katherine had fed from Stefan and Damon, and as much as she didn’t want to do that, it was the only way she knew to get through the next two weeks. She did know to avoid feeding on Stefan the last night though. If things went as they did last time, he would have been dosed with vervain. 

She managed to keep breakfast down, but then Stefan and Damon were sent into town and she was left with just their father, who scared her more than a little since she knew what kind of man he was. She also knew that Katherine had wrapped him around her finger until the end so when he invited her to play a game of croquet, she had to accept. Thankfully she had a chance to whisper to Emily that she didn’t know how to play, so Emily sat under the shade tree muttering instructions under her breath that only vampire ears could hear. 

Elena also heard the conversation between Stefan and Damon where Stefan wanted to tell their father what she was and get him to help protect her. She was definitely on Damon’s side in that one. Him knowing would be a nightmare. She just picked at her lunch, not able to stomach any of it. It reminded her of when Damon explained that they could eat human food as long as they kept a healthy diet of blood, which she definitely didn’t have right now. Dinner was even worse and she begged off with the excuse of going to lay down. 

It wasn’t long after, likely as soon as dinner ended, that there was a knock on the door. “Are you alright, Miss Katherine?” Damon asked worriedly when he came in. 

“I will be,” she told him. “I did not get any blood last night and am feeling rather faint.” She would feel a lot better if he offered and he didn’t hesitate to do so. 

Damon stepped over and turned down his collar, tilting his neck to the side. “Please. Take what you need.” 

Elena brushed a hand down his cheek before baring her fangs and biting into his neck as gently as she could. She took more than she should have, but she was so hungry she hadn’t been able to stop herself. When he got so dizzy that he couldn’t keep his feet under him anymore, she forced herself to stop and helped him lie down. “My apologies, Damon,” she said softly, running a hand through his hair and laying next to him. “It had been too long since I fed. I did not mean to take so much.” 

“There is no need for apologies, Miss Katherine. I am simply happy that I could give you what you needed,” he said weakly. 

Even if she didn’t want to, she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from laying at his side, amazed when his arm immediately wrapped around her and pulled her close. His complete devotion to her was even more than she had expected. It had been downplayed in both their stories. How could Katherine not see how precious this was? How could she break this man who loved so freely and completely? She knew that he wouldn’t be up to sex tonight after being drained so much, so she got another night’s reprieve before she had to sleep with him for the first time and she didn’t know if she was looking forward to it or dreading it. She would give him all the cuddles he wanted though. He deserved that much. This time they talked more during it than they had last night though. At least he did. She avoided talking much about her own life, making a mental note to fill in the details in her mind that Katherine had never told her, but she kept him talking about his. 

When he left a few hours later, he was much more steady on his feet, but would likely sleep heavily and eat quite a bit tomorrow. It wasn’t long after he left that Stefan was at her door. His first question was also if she was alright and she gave him the same answer. His reaction was different though. “I’m sure my brother offered you plenty,” he said with a grin as he pulled her into a kiss. “But if you need more after, you can take a little from me too.” 

Elena was a little taken aback, but allowed him to lead her to the bed and she undressed him as he undressed her. She had to remind herself that this Stefan was young. He didn’t have the century and a half of experience that he had when she knew him. It wasn’t /bad/ exactly. It just wasn’t very good either and he didn’t show much concern for her needs, focusing mainly on his own. Once they were done…or he was at least…she asked again if she could have some blood and he turned his head, offering his neck. She managed to take less than she had from Damon, but got herself topped off. As long as she kept taking a little every day and didn’t skip any more days she would be okay for the next two weeks. 

The next night, when Damon came to her room, there was no more stalling, and when he pulled her into a kiss, she responded eagerly, letting herself do what she’d always secretly wanted and surrender herself to him. The kiss quickly turned heated and she was as overcome with desire as he was. She remembered how he was with her in the future, the few times they’d kissed and it was much the same. A little less experience, but the same unbridled passion that he allowed himself to get completely lost in. 

By the time they tumbled into bed, Elena knew that this was going to be the most amazing night of her life, and he didn’t disappoint in the slightest. First he got her off on his tongue before even giving into his own desires and when he slid himself inside her he went slowly and took his time building her up while hands and lips roamed every inch of skin they could reach. She could tell that he was having trouble holding back by the time he flipped them over and it took her a minute to realize what he was waiting for, so she sank her teeth into his neck for a long drink and he was coming almost the second she did as she followed right along, having been on the edge herself. 

Elena managed to not take much, despite how much harder it was to stop when she was still riding the wave of her orgasm. She slid off to his side panting for breath, and when she laid her head on his chest, she felt his smile as he kissed her head. Had she not even given him this much before? They laid there for a long while before Emily’s warning had her unfortunately kicking him out. Like always, Stefan was at her door minutes later and she found herself wondering if he actually watched her room to see when Damon left. Unlike Damon, he was quick out the door when they finished. 

Within a few days she realized that, no matter what her choice in the future, in this time…with the people they were now…Damon was clearly her choice and she found herself falling even more in love with him than ever before. Leaving him was going to kill her. She had been there almost a week when, during their post-coital cuddle time, he asked, “Have you decided yet who you wish to escort you to the ball?”

She almost winced as she remembered that Katherine had been stringing them both along on that as well and rushed to fix it. “Yes actually. I would be honored if you would escort me, Damon,” she told him, despite knowing that Katherine had taken Stefan. 

“I would love nothing more, Miss Katherine,” Damon said with a smile and kissed her softly. 

“You can simply call me Katherine,” she told him, wondering if he’d ever been invited to do so before. 

“Thank you, Katherine,” he said with an even brighter smile and this time she was the one to kiss him. 

When Stefan came in later, she told him that she was allowing Damon to escort her to the ball, but stopped herself before she apologized for it. Katherine would never apologize and she was still trying to keep her distance to a point with Stefan. Leaving him behind would hurt too, but not nearly like leaving Damon.


	4. Chapter 4

Pearl came to her the next day, worried about the vervain that she was now being asked to give out to everyone, and Elena assured her that everything would be fine, knowing that she would have to die in a week along with every other vampire in this town besides herself. She apparently managed to pull off playing Katherine rather well, since Pearl didn’t seem suspicious at all, beyond telling her off for playing with the Salvatore brothers when they should be leaving. She promised to leave a few days after the ball, knowing that it would be too late, but it placated Pearl enough. 

Damon and Stefan had both been with her on that trip to town, and later that night, Damon asked her, “Why are you so different when we are alone?” 

Elena smiled and brushed a hand down his cheek as she cuddled up to his side. “Because I feel safe enough to be myself around you,” she told him honestly. When she was with him she wasn’t trying to play up the Katherine persona and just let herself be. 

Damon smiled brightly and leaned into her touch. “I love you, Katherine,” he said for the first time. 

“I love you too, Damon,” she breathed out, snuggling deeper into his arms and closing her eyes against the wash of pain, knowing that this was coming to an end soon. If she remembered the dates correctly, the night after the ball would be their last night and the ball was only a few days away.

When the night of the ball rolled around, Elena was more than a little nervous and was trying to decide when to run. Tonight after the ball would be safest, but it would also risk tipping off the others. No, it would be best to wait until tomorrow night once the round-up started. Katherine hadn’t been caught until she fed on Stefan, so she just wouldn’t go for Stefan tomorrow night. And she had already told him that since Damon was her date for the ball, it was only fair for him to get all of her for the night so she didn’t need to see him tonight either. Part of her felt guilty that she was relieved to be done with Stefan. 

She and Damon danced most of the night and she managed to relax and enjoy herself, even if she was trying to watch the other ladies to see how to conduct herself at an event like this in this time period. Thankfully, Katherine had never been much for rules or proper behavior so any mistakes were assumed to be intentional, but at least she managed to avoid a scandal. That night she spent the entire night with Damon until she was ready to go to sleep. She wished so much that just once she could spend the entire night in his arms and wake up next to him the next morning. 

The next day, she made sure to be seen in town and even stopped to talk to Pearl, assuring her that they were good to leave in a few days, but then Pearl mentioned that Johnathon Gilbert was just finishing up an invention that would track them and she was too concerned to wait, so Elena told her they would leave the following night. Pearl thanked her, not even realizing that tonight she would be dead before they got a chance to leave. 

That night, she was the one to go to Damon’s room. He was surprised to see her, but gladly let her in. Elena couldn’t resist being with him one more time and even cuddled with him for a little bit before she knew she had to go. She just couldn’t resist saying goodbye though. Just disappearing out of the blue would hurt him so much more and she wanted to ease as much of his pain as she could. “I have to leave, Damon. Tonight. You will not see me again.”

“No, Katherine. Please. Take me with you,” Damon begged, holding her tightly and looking pleadingly into her eyes. 

“I can’t,” she said sadly. 

“You can turn me,” Damon said seriously. “Feed me your blood. Let me love you forever.” 

Elena bit her lip. She had hoped that with her not bringing the subject up, that it wouldn’t come up. She didn’t know if she could deny him though. “I do not know,” she said hesitantly. 

“I vow to you Katherine that I will be by your side for eternity. I cannot live without you,” Damon argued. 

Elena sighed heavily. Only the fact that she knew that Damon enjoyed being a vampire made her agree. “Very well. I have to go now, but you can take some time to pack. Meet me under the Wickery Bridge at midnight.” 

“I will be there,” Damon assured her, kissing her deeply before she got up and quickly redressed herself. Rather than risk going back through the house, she jumped out his third floor window and then back in her own, using her vampire speed to pack in less than a minute. She asked Emily to enchant his signet ring with the daylight enchantment which only took a moment and then she was gone. She ran to the train station and bought two tickets heading west before making it back to the bridge half an hour before midnight to wait for Damon. 

Damon didn’t come at midnight, but she kept waiting. She would wait forever for him. Unfortunately, around three in the morning she was stumbled on by Johnathon Gilbert with his stupid pocket watch and quickly pounced. She couldn’t believe that he was stupid enough to be out here alone like this, but there were probably others nearby. At least she had the device now so there wasn’t any worry about someone else finding her hiding place. 

When Damon still wasn’t there by the time he started waking up, she knocked him out again. It wasn’t long after that when a search party came looking for him so she grabbed his unconscious body and hid them high in the trees until they moved off, and still Damon didn’t come. When the sun started coming up and she knew that the search parties would be finished, so she ran to dump him at the edge of town, still unconscious before returning to the bridge. 

When she got there, she found Damon sitting at the base of the bridge, his large military duffel bag sitting next to him. He had his knees pulled to his chest and his head in his hands. “Damon!” she rushed over to him. 

Damon looked up, his expression of despair turning to one of pure joy as he jumped to his feet and swung her around, giving her a hard kiss. “I am so sorry that I was not here last night. Father had the house guarded and I was unable to get away until first light.” 

“It is alright, Damon. You are here now,” she said happily. 

“You waited,” he breathed out almost in awe. 

“I would wait forever for you, my love,” she told him as she reached out to cup his cheek. “But we must leave immediately, lest someone return here and find me. I spent most of the night eluding them.” 

“Where are we going?” Damon asked, picking up his bag to follow her. 

“West,” she said. “I have heard that things are more than interesting there. I have already purchased us train tickets. It leaves in two hours.” 

“We best hurry then,” Damon said picking up the pace. Without a carriage it would take that long to walk to the station. “When will you turn me?” he asked as they walked. 

“When we reach our destination,” she assured him. “It will take too long to do so now.” 

They made it to the train in plenty of time, thanks to someone riding by who offered to take them. Elena would have loved to take a drink, but couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t on vervain this close to Mystic Falls, so decided to wait. She hadn’t fed on Damon last night, wanting their last night together to be special and she hadn’t filled up the night before since she hadn’t seen Stefan. Once they were secluded away in a private compartment of the train though, she asked Damon for some blood which he eagerly gave her. 

She also compelled a few more snacks from other passengers on the train, taking the opportunity to show Damon how to feed humanely. She almost laughed at the idea of her teaching him what he had taught her in the future. She still hated the idea of hurting people, but there weren’t any blood banks, or even real hospitals in this time period, so it was that or starve. She contented herself with the fact that if she weren’t here, Katherine Pierce would be killing people left and right, so it was still better this way. 

During the trip, Elena told him that she would be going by a different name when they reached their destination. “Why? And what name will you be going by?” Damon asked her. 

“I usually change my name every few hundred years,” she told him, which had been true. “I will be going by Elena for a time.”

“What other names have you used?” Damon asked curiously. 

“My birth name was Katerina Petrova. I changed it to Katherine Pierce when I arrived in the new world.” 

“Then you will now be Elena Pierce? Or will you change your surname as well?” Damon asked her. 

“I have not decided yet,” she told him. 

“If I may suggest…perhaps you could use Salvatore as your surname?” he asked hopefully with a blush. 

Elena smiled brightly and snuggled to his side. She had told people that they were married to stop any objection to them traveling together. “I would very much like that.”

“And perhaps, when we reach our destination, we could make it official and marry?” Damon got the courage to ask from her answer. 

“In that case, I will remain Elena Pierce until then,” she said happily.


	5. Chapter 5

The trip took them nearly two weeks, and by the time they reached Colorado, they were more than glad to be off the train. Their first stop was the church, where they were married on the spot before heading to the inn for their wedding night. They made love for hours before Elena followed through on her promise. “Are you certain that you still wish to be turned?” she asked. 

“More than anything, my darling wife,” he breathed out. “I want nothing more than to spend eternity by your side.”

Elena smiled and bit into her wrist before placing it to his lips and he drank greedily. “Now you will need to die. Do you have any preference as to how?” 

“Drink me dry,” he offered. If he could give her what she needed in the process it would be the best way to go. That led to another round of lovemaking. She knew how much he enjoyed being bitten as he was coming, only this time she didn’t stop. Once he was dead, she slipped his signet ring back on his finger, despite the fact that it was still hours until sunup, and laid beside him to wait for him to wake. 

When he woke up, he looked around nervously, relaxing when his eyes lit on her and he smiled brightly. “It is done?” 

“Almost,” she told him. “Now you must drink from a human. Wait here and I will return,” she told him, kissing him deeply before heading downstairs. She knew that he would need more than one person this time unless he drained the one dry, which she wanted to avoid. She didn’t want to get him in the habit of killing. That meant he would need a few people and thankfully there was an all night poker game still going so she compelled them all to follow her upstairs. 

Elena had to physically pull him back from the first two before he took too much, but the next two he managed to restrain himself without help. Elena walked him through how to compel them to forget and keep the bite marks covered up and then they were alone again and getting ready for bed. Since the sun was just starting to rise when they went to bed, it was afternoon when they woke up. Elena took him into the woods to teach him to run and jump away from prying eyes. 

They shared a nice dinner at an outdoor café, before Elena went to get all of her fancy clothes and traded them away. The styles here were much more relaxed, though she did keep two of the nice dresses. She was able to replace her entire wardrobe and still have more than enough credit for other things. They didn’t need food or the like and they could only carry so much with them as they travelled so she took currency for the rest. Damon followed her lead and did the same, though there was far less left over since men’s formal styles were far less expensive than women’s. 

They used the extra to purchase two horses and just barely had enough left over for the gear for them. Damon compelled the stable owner to feed them for free while they were in town which was only for two more weeks before they were moving on to the next town. They continued traveling the west like that for nearly three decades before Damon brought up the idea of going back to Virginia. “I should like to see my brother again. To know what sort of life he led.”

“We would need to be careful. There may be others that would recognize us,” she told him. She knew that Stefan knew about vampires so wouldn’t be likely to freak out. Not unless he’d become a vampire hater after they left. 

“We will be,” Damon promised, which led them to another two week journey on a train, headed back for home. 

They scoped out the house and surrounding area to make sure that Damon’s father wasn’t still around. The slaves had all been freed a long time ago, so there was nothing to worry about there, and when they were sure that Stefan would be the only one to recognize them, they went to knock on the door. Stefan was the one to answer and he gasped in shock and took a step back with his hand over his heart. “May we come in, brother?” Damon asked with a grin. 

“Why are you here?” Stefan asked suspiciously, looking between the two of them. He was no fool. He knew that they were both vampires now, and wasn’t letting them in his house until he knew that they were there in peace. 

“Because I missed my brother,” Damon told him. 

“We do not mean anyone any harm,” Elena added. “We just wanted to check in on you and see how you were.”

Stefan looked at them curiously for a long moment before nodding and stepping out of the doorway. “Then please, come in. My wife and children do not know of vampires.”

“We shall be cousins then, coming for a visit,” Damon told him with an accepting nod. 

Stefan introduced them to his wife, Samantha who used to be a Gilbert and Elena resisted the urge to goggle at her. In her future Samantha had been killed enough times while wearing the Gilbert ring to turn into a serial killer and sent to a mental institution. Apparently she avoided that fate this time around. They had two children, one of whom Stefan had named after his lost brother who had been declared dead. Damon and Lillian were twelve and seven and the older Damon and Elena doted on them during the visit. 

Stefan told them that most of the town was off of vervain now, and only the council, of which he was a member, drank it and even knew of vampires. When they promised not to kill anyone, he was even nice enough to point out the council members that were off limits. Stefan knew better than most that it was possible to feed without causing any real harm. Damon and Elena stayed for two weeks before they moved on and headed north this time, spending the next few decades touring around New England. 

The next time they made it back to Mystic falls, Stefan and Samantha had passed and Damon the younger was nearly forty. He was in on the secret of vampires and had his own seat on the council now, and thanks to his father’s journals, knew that his aunt and uncle were vampires, but good ones, so they were met with open arms. The old estate had burned down a while back, but the Salvatores were now running a boarding house near where the old estate stood. 

That was the first time that Damon and Elena stayed in one place for more than a couple months. This was home and since there was no one left that would recognize them, they felt free to stay and make a life there for a while. They stuck around for twenty years before moving on around nineteen sixty. Damon the younger promised to leave journals and keep their memory alive so that they would always be welcome anytime they wished to come home. Elena knew that it would be a while though. She didn’t want to be living there during her old self’s life. 

She did sneak away from Damon from time to time to check up on herself though, starting with the trip she took to destroy the Wickery Bridge two days before the accident would have happened that killed her parents. They were forced to take the long way home that night, but they survived. For two more days before another car accident killed them and Elena realized that it really had just been their time. Her younger self still survived though, despite not having the intervention of Stefan. In fact, that time she hadn’t even been in the car. 

She checked back every year, spending a weekend away to do so, and staying out of sight while she was there. Without the Salvatore vampires, the tomb vampires who were all actually killed this time, or the intervention of Katherine, things were calm there. Klaus never got the tip about the doppelganger since vampires were still avoiding the town like the plague, not having any of their own to rescue, and young Elena lived a long happy life, only knowing about vampires in theory from the Gilbert seat on the council. 

She became a novelist, married Matt Donovan after a brief breakup following the death of her parents, and had three kids that she doted on. Vampire Elena also kept an eye on her other friends and family too. Jeremy and Bonnie were married with a few kids of their own. The same with Caroline and Tyler, who never activated his werewolf curse. By the time they were in their fifties, Elena had stopped checking in, but she and Damon still waited another fifty years before heading back to Mystic Falls for a couple more decades. 

They had been together for nearly eight hundred years when Damon was killed by a hunter. Elena quickly killed the hunter and then herself, refusing to live in a world where he wasn’t. Just as he had in the timeline that wasn’t. Even knowing that she would be alone on the other side didn’t stop her, but she was surprised to find that she wasn’t actually alone. “Damon?” she asked breathlessly, reaching out a hand for him and she cried with joy when he managed to take it and pull her in for a loving kiss. 

Emily took that moment to appear again. “I thought you could use an explanation. The two of you are soulmates and you are bound by many instances of shared blood. This allows you to share this afterlife, but you won’t be able to see or interact with anyone else.” 

“Thank you Emily,” Elena said with a smile, knowing now why she could see him now, but not last time. While she had shared his blood once as a vampire, he had never had hers. They hadn’t been bound before. 

“No, thank /you/ Elena. You lived up to your promises and more. You are released from your vow of silence now,” she told her as she disappeared. 

“Vow of silence?” Damon asked curiously, taking her hand as they went to find a place to live on this plane. 

“I’m not actually the Katherine you met back in eighteen sixty four,” Elena admitted, knowing that eight hundred years together would easily overcome the two weeks he’d been with Katherine before she took over. “My original name was Elena Gilbert and I was a doppelganger of Katherine’s born in nineteen ninety two. I was a vampire too, but a very new one when I died. I was given the option of taking over Katherine’s life since she was pure evil and doing it better this time and I took it. Part of the deal was never telling a living soul or there would be dire consequences.”

“When exactly did you take over Katherine’s body?” Damon asked curiously. 

“The first night you came to me and I told you I was tired so we spent a couple hours cuddling in bed,” Elena said with a smile. That was a memory she could never forget. 

Neither could Damon and he pulled her close and kissed her head. “Was I a vampire in that time too? Did we know each other?” he asked, knowing that she’d seemed very comfortable with him for just having met him then. 

“You were and we did. Stefan was also a vampire. Stefan and I met first, at least as far as I knew and I fell in love with him. The more I got to know you the more I loved you too though and you loved me just as much. If I hadn’t died, we probably would have ended up together then too. After I died, you got revenge for me and then killed yourself to follow me, but we weren’t bonded then so we were both alone in this place.” That whole story kept them busy for a long time, but after that their eternity on the other side was filled with a great deal of boredom, only broken up by watching over the living world. It was difficult for them both not to be able to interact so they didn’t do that too often, and instead spent most of their time wrapped up in each other.


End file.
